Someone actually put me in the paper...
Building a 72-hour novel:Hundreds of would-be novelists are polishing their
prose for next weekend's 3-Day Novel Contest. The rules are simple: Start
writing book after midnight Friday; finish it by midnight Monday.The Ottawa Citizen
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Page: C1 / FRONT
Section: The Citizen's Weekly Arts & Books
Byline: Alexandra Zabjek
Source: The Ottawa Citizen
To write a novel in 72 hours you might need a little luck, a lot of
practice, or, in the case of James Richardson, a big crockpot of stew.
Next weekend, Richardson's Prescott home will transform into a scene from a
college student's mid-term nightmare: he will unplug the phone, live off a
three-day supply of beef stew, and try to write a book by Monday at
midnight.
It's the 3-Day Novel Contest and Richardson will enter a world inhabited by
writers who are willing to put pride, story ideas and a long Labour Day
weekend on the line to produce a short novel.
Up for grabs is a mouthwatering prize for any scribe: a publication
contract. There's also a second prize ($500) and other literary goodies.
Now in its 29th year, the novel contest attracts hundreds of writers from
around the world. Most, like Richardson, have been writing "since the first
time they put one of those big, fat red pencils in my hand in grade school."
The 36-year-old cellular phone repairman hopes to pound out a prequel to the
fantasy novel he's been toiling at for years.
He has no illusions about winning. He simply wants to write.
"If I can finish the book and not be horrified to let people read it, I'll
be more than happy," he says.
The contest began as a barroom bet among a group of Vancouver writers and
has been kept afloat through four small publishers who have produced 22
books from it. When Vancouver's Blue Lake Books shut down in 2003, the
contest came close to following suit, but friends Melissa Edwards and
Barbara Zatyko volunteered to keep the literary marathon running. They still
manage the contest today, with Edwards based on the West Coast and Zatyko in
Toronto.
The rules for writers are simple: mail in a $50 entry fee, start writing no
sooner than 12:01 a.m. this Saturday. Stop writing 72 hours later and have
someone witness that you did it. Outlines are allowed and there's no
mandated length, but entries are usually at least 100 pages. Novelists
writing by hand have four days to get their manuscripts typed, and finally:
don't cheat -- the judges will know.
"There's a tone and an energy that comes out of people who really commit
themselves to this contest that if people cheat is lacking," says Edwards,
the contest's managing editor, who wrote about a bachelorette gone wrong
when she entered in 2001. Entrants, though, she says, rarely cheat.
About 20 independent writers and publishers comb through the manuscripts,
producing a 12-book shortlist that's given to a separate group of judges.
It's a time-consuming process; last year, it took almost four months before
Portland, Oregon writer Jan Underwood's Day Shift Werewolf was chosen the
winner. The contest saw 300 entries.
While anyone who slogs through 72 hours of novel writing earns at least some
bragging rights, the quality of entries vary. Edwards has received novels as
short as 10 pages but it's rare for anything less than 80 pages to be
considered for the shortlist.
The winning novel is edited with a "light hand," usually to correct gaps in
logic or to keep the story line focused.
"Plot is a good idea," says Edwards, noting that books focused on character
development usually aren't page-turners. Ultimately, Edwards says, writers
who want to win should ask themselves: "Is this a book I'd want to walk into
a bookstore and read?"
Despite years of recognition among amateur and seasoned writers, the 3-Day
Novel contest still runs on a shoestring budget -- or rather, it runs on
Edwards' credit card until registration fees start rolling in. But this
year, the project will get more coverage as the organizers have struck a
deal with BookTelevision to film 12 contestants writing their masterpieces
at a Chapters store in Edmonton.
"Barbara and I think it will be a lot of fun," says Edwards. "That's really
the only reason we're doing it, because it's an exciting new angle for the
contest. I'm very curious to see how it will turn out."
Also raising the contest's profile is winner Underwood, who has been touring
bookstores with Day Shift Werewolf, a collection of short stories about the
mishaps of several "incompetent monsters" living in Stevens' Ferry, a small
West Coast town.
The book's title character is Warren, a werewolf who is demoted to the
dayshift for his low body count. Union rules protect him from being fired.
Warren -- who is scared of dogs and proud of his beefsteak tomato plants --
is initially disheartened, but the shift change helps him discover he
doesn't particularly enjoy hunting humans.
Readers will find Underwood's prose concise and humorous as she details the
monsters' insecurities. The plot lines are simple but clever, and you might
find yourself pausing in the middle of her stories to think: "She wrote this
in three days!"
The offbeat comedic horror fits well with the ethos of the 3-Day Novel
contest, says Underwood, and winning books are often fantasy stories that
combine several genres.
"There's an element of zaniness that's built into the idea of trying to
write a whole novel in 72 hours," says Underwood, who teaches Spanish at a
community college in Portland.
Underwood had been thinking about the character of Warren the werewolf for a
few years and spent time researching monsters ("Do zombies actually suck
brains?") before sitting down at her keyboard last Labour Day weekend. She
said a lifetime of writing helped her pump out the book, although she added
two chapters to her original submission during the editing process.
"There's a predictable trajectory that people go through," Underwood says
about the writing contest. "It's a bit like the five stages of grieving."
The first day is exciting, the mood tapers off on the second day, and day
three is just plain treacherous. "It's a normal thing and it doesn't mean
that you can't do it," she says.
Undoubtedly, every author will bring unique anxieties to the contest when
forced to fill a computer screen with story ideas they've been kicking
around for years. Some are taking unusual steps to prepare for the
challenge. Prescott's James Richardson for one is determined to complete the
unfinished den in his home in order to have a place to focus on his writing
next weekend.
For a person who "lives on his computer," Richardson also has made the brash
decision to type his novel on an old Dell system that isn't connected to the
Internet. If all goes as planned, he will have completed a novel about a
wizard slayer named Morgan by the end of the long weekend.
He isn't worried about his page-count: "I'd not be surprised to see me
pushing 150 pages in three days," he says. "My main concern is stopping long
enough to be able to edit the thing."
Other contestants, such as Kitty MacAlpine and Mimi Richard-Golding from
Ottawa, are using the 3-Day Novel contest to unleash the creative energy
that's sometimes stifled in their jobs as technical writers. The pair might
also let loose some professional angst -- their planned novel is a murder
mystery involving the death of a software developer and a technical writer
who is falsely accused of the crime.
"I'm hoping that we'll get rid of the tensions," said MacAlpine.
Richard-Golding and MacAlpine will write in tandem, passing the story off
every 12 hours, with each working from their own home. The friends almost
entered the contest in 2005, but illness forced them to withdraw. MacAlpine
has booked this Friday off to ensure she's ready for the writing marathon.
"It might turn out to be the most ridiculous story on the planet, but it's
going to be fun," said MacAlpine. "No matter what, we'll send it in."
- - -
Writers have until Friday to send in registration fees for this year's
contest. For contest information: www.3daynovel.com
